Resolved:  That all items on the agenda be web-cast.

Apologies were received from Councillors Mrs Marshall and Mrs Stockell.

It was noted that Councillor FitzGerald was substituting for Councillor Mrs Marshall.

There were no visiting Members.

a)  Disclosures of interest.

b)  Disclosures of lobbying.

c)  Disclosures of whipping.

There were no disclosures.

Resolved:  That all items be taken in public as proposed.

Resolved:  That the minutes of the meeting held on 4 August 2009 be agreed as a correct record and duly signed by the Chairman.

Interview with Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Councillor Richard Ash, and the Head of Revenues and Benefits and Community Safety, Steve McGinnes.

The Head of Revenues and Benefits and Community Safety, Steve McGinnes, explained that while the level of unemployment in Maidstone Borough was relatively low, the increase in unemployment as a result of the recession was proportionally significant with a rise of 130%.  Maidstone was the fifth lowest borough in Kent for the proportion of the population unemployed.  10,000 families in the borough received housing and/or council tax benefit which would equate to a spend of approximately £42 million in 2009/10. The increase in benefits take up had led to an increase in work for the benefits team, the contact centre and the Gateway, which had seen a rise in footfall.  Waiting times had increased because there was more work to process, and this led to further work as more people were contacting the Council to check on the status of their claim. Gateway staff had received training to allow them to deal with more queries to improve the Gateway waiting times. The position had now stabilised with the number of outstanding items of work in the benefits section at around 500 rather than 700 as had been the case recently.  Claims took around 5 days longer to process than they had before the recession, however Maidstone was still a top performing authority.  Customer satisfaction remained consistently high despite the additional waiting times.  With regard to the contact centre and the Gateway, the waiting times for these were outside of the corporate response time and this was being monitored.  Further training was being considered to extend the group of staff that could deal with benefits queries.  A Councillor requested information on the proportion of Gateway enquiries that were related to benefits.

A lot of work had been undertaken to improve the take up of benefits and to join up benefits work more generally to avoid customers missing out on those benefits that they were entitled to. New software was being introduced that identified other benefits applicants were entitled to and a benefits calculator was available online so that residents could calculate their own entitlement to housing and council tax benefit.  Information on benefits was also sent out with council tax bills. The Council was part of the Kent Benefits Partnership which promoted the take up of housing and council tax benefit.  A Councillor asked for information on the level of use of the internet to apply for benefits.

The Benefits Hub was a new initiative whereby the Council would join with other partners to join up benefits services in order to provide a holistic benefits service.  A multi-agency project team had been established to progress the project and there had been some success to date, for example training staff in the Gateway to deal with housing benefit, council tax benefit and pension credit enquiries.  With regard to the pension credit service, if this was not delivered in the Gateway then there would be nowhere in the borough for residents to have their documents verified so this was very positive.  A joint  ...  view the full minutes text for item 51.

The Committee agreed that more information on how the Council was addressing the economic downturn was required from the Leader of the Council.  Members agreed to invite the Leader to the next meeting, and to request written information from the Economic Development Manager and Town Centre Management on how the recession was affecting businesses.

The Acting Overview and Scrutiny Manager informed the Committee that the interviews with Councillors being undertaken as part of the Overview and Scrutiny Function Review were progressing well, with clear themes arising including the need to reconsider meeting formats, training requirements and the importance of the choice of topics for review.

With regard to the forward plan, several Members suggested that the procurement of an external printing contract would be an important issue for the Committee to consider. As the decision would be taken prior to the Committee’s next meeting, it was agreed that the background documents for the decision would be requested from the Head of Business Improvement.

Resolved:  That

a)  The Leader of the Council be invited to the October meeting to discuss the action that the Council was taking to address the impact of the recession;

b)  Information on the impact of the recession on local businesses be requested from the Economic Development Manager and Town Centre Management; and

c)  Background documents for the key decision on the procurement of an external printing contract be requested from the Head of Business Improvement.

6:30 p.m. to 7:45 p.m.